Whoo hoo!™

Hm... I saw both of the following while I was reading on the Times today.

Whoo hoo™ indeed...



I've been kicking around a blog post on all of this for the past few days. So, consider yourselves (all both of you) warned. I may actually post something on this blog every now and then.

National Alarm Clock

After hearing some of McCain's remarks today speaking to the VFW, I was disappointed to see the rhetoric continue as if the Russia-Georgia affair didn't have any affect on our foreign policy prospects. As my Dad alluded to a few days ago, this ought to be setting off alarm bells: has the Iraq war so weakened us that Russia believes it can invade any of its neighbors with impunity? Does Russia believe it can safely ignore the President of the United States?

Not only has the Iraq war physically weakened our military, it has also forced us to cede the moral high ground -- we can't (with a straight face) demand that Russia not go around unilaterally invading countries.

Furthermore, by putting our military in such an untenable situation, it has given the rest of the world the impression that we are weak. The great United States can't even take care of a country as small and pathetic as Iraq. Had we shown restraint and stayed out of Iraq, no such impression would exist. Perhaps the most important function of our military is its ability to deter other countries from military action. Russia, clearly, doesn't feel deterred by our military at this time.

So, with all of that in mind, it was especially disillusioning to see Senator McCain resume his campaign of calling for "victory" in Iraq and accusing Obama of wanting to "lose" the war, whatever the hell that means.

McCain's advisers are cynically banking that the American people won't notice any of the above. They continue to aim their rhetoric at the lowest common denominator -- Americans whose knowledge of world affairs doesn't go much past the ability to point to Russia on a map and who get their news from People Magazine Television (er... CNN).

We've got to get the American people to wake up. I sure hope Obama has a plan.

CNN Newsworthy Event of the Day

It's a tie!

McCain's Op Ed That Wasn't

Today, the New York Times declined to print an op-ed piece by John McCain. I have to say that I don't think any major newspaper ought to be turning down an article from a major candidate; however, I was extremely curious to see what exactly in the article was so offensive to the Times. Naturally, the McCain campaign has already posted the article at other venues already and will undoubtedly use this to bludgeon the Times into oblivion.

I think I may have found the passage the Times objected to:

To make this point, [Obama] mangles the evidence. He makes it sound as if Prime Minister Maliki has endorsed the Obama timetable, when all he has said is that he would like a plan for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops at some unspecified point in the future.

But, here is the quote from Maliki:

"U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes."

Senator McCain, it is my duty to inform you that your pants are on fire.

McCain will tell you that the Iraqis have since pulled back from that statement, but evidence has emerged that they only pulled back after much pressure from the White House. Also, McCain is insinuating that Maliki never said anything like that.

A few paragraphs down, McCain leads with this gem: "No one favors a permanent U.S. presence, as Senator Obama charges." Wow. It sounds like John McCain wants to cut and run instead of staying the course. Also, didn't he say something about 100 years and that leaving would be surrender? In today's article, McCain says he hopes to have most of our troops home by the end of his first term.

Here's another one:

I am also dismayed that he never talks about winning the war?only of ending it. But if we don't win the war, our enemies will. A triumph for the terrorists would be a disaster for us.

McCain loves this line. He wants to win the war! But what the hell does that mean? I don't think we're going to be getting the terrorists to sit down with us to sign a treaty. Now, you'd think that the fact that McCain is backing away from his original position and moving towards Obama's might dissuade him from accusing Obama of being for surrender. But not John McCain. He's so honest and independent that he can copy the other guy's plan, and then accuse him of surrendering to the terrorists.

The influence of McCain's new Karl Rove surrogate advisors is beginning to surface. A Rovian campaign believes it can say anything it wants whenever it wants and get away with it. I sincerely hope he is not able to convince the public that he has been for withdrawing troops from Iraq since the beginning.

As for the NY Times, I suppose they must have decided that they're not willing to print a whole bunch of bald face lies, no matter who penned them. I can't imagine this ending well for the Times. After all, they printed an op-ed piece by Obama just last week. If it had been my call, I would have run McCain's piece, but I also would have included a small fact-check in the adjacent column.

What digby (and Jimmy Carter) said

http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2008/07/mourning-in-america-by-digby-jonathan.html

Let's go Rangers!!

Rangers are now 38-26 since May 1 -- a .593 winning percentage, the same winning percentage the Angels have on the year. If only the Rangers had been only moderately terrible in April...

FISA

Jonathan Turley, a man my Dad believes to be a preeminent authority on the Constitution, today on the new FISA bill.

The argument for it is quite simple. Nobody wants to have a confrontation over the fact that the President committed a felony -- not once, but at least thirty times. That's a very inconvenient fact right now in Washington.
...
It's like one of those stories where someone is assaulted on the street and 100 witnesses do nothing. And, in this case, the 4th amendment is going to be eviscerated tomorrow and 100 people are going to watch it happen because it's just not their problem.

When you talk about expanding the President's power, it's coming out of the morrow of the 4th amendment; it's coming out of the bone. And it's going to hurt. And it's being done for political convenience. There's not an ounce of principle, not an ounce of public interest in this legislation.
...
[The telecoms] are going to have a great victory. But it's a pyrrhic victory for the rest of us and what we will lose tomorrow is something very precious. It's going to be part of the 4th amendment. And that is beyond measure.

That Senators Feingold, Leahy, and Dodd's opposition to this bill is seen by most legislators as politically risky, is a reminder of how far our country has to go to cleanse itself of the stench left by the Bush administration. In our current political climate, the 4th amendment, like the Geneva Conventions, has been "rendered quaint" by the Global War on Terror(tm).

I suppose I have no choice but to trust Barack Obama's political senses. He obviously believes the backlash from GOP attack ads would be an unnecessary burden for his campaign. In exchange for that trust, I expect President Obama to urgently restore the 4th amendment after he takes office. Of course, that lets the guilty actors in the Bush administration and the complicit telecom companies -- who have likely committed felonies -- off the hook. As much as I hate to see Bush get away with this, it is more important that we restore the rule of law and not allow this illegal program to continue for one day after Bush leaves office.

What hypocrites we must look like to the rest of the world. America -- the beacon of Democracy in the world -- allows its government to openly violate the supreme law of the land; allows its President to incarcerate any man for any reason for any length of time; allows its military to torture prisoners using techniques developed by Communist China to obtain confessions from American prisoners. Meanwhile, our population is more interested in what Paris Hilton did last weekend than any of that stuff.

It is, truly, a sad state of affairs.

Gaggle of Douchebags

Jon Stewart wonders what our government's classification of North Korea is now that they are dismantling their nuclear program.

Torture

New York Times:

The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”

What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.

I don't really know what to say except: Gore for VP!!

Incidentally, that is an excerpt from perhaps the best speech I've ever seen Gore give. Here is a video of the full speech (unfortunately, I can only find it in RealPlayer format). Note also that that speech was given May 26, 2004. Gore was ridiculed at the time for being overly critical of the Bush administration.

What Digby Said

Which is what Atrios said.

But really, digby has a good post on bipartisanship in Washington.

(This has been another edition of What Digby Said)

Saint McCain

StraightTalkerMaverickReformer™ John McCain evidently can do no wrong in the eyes of the media, even when he does something wrong.

In a column for CNN.com today, Roland Martin said the following:

McCain can now call himself the candidate who is prone to keeping his word and not making the politically smart move.

Don't be surprised to see McCain make this decision a significant part of his campaign, and he and his surrogates will hammer Obama repeatedly between now and November on the one issue that the senior senator from Arizona has made his calling card.

The first sentence, incidentally, appears to have been edited out of the story now, though it was in there when I checked a few hours ago. I wrote Mr. Martin an email:

Given the above passage from your article today, I have inferred that you are unaware of the shenanigans the McCain campaign has gone through with the public financing in the primary season. For starters, I recommend reading this Washington Post article.

To summarize, when McCain's campaign was struggling last year, he opted into the public financing system so that he would get $5.8 million in public funds in March. But, by February, when it became clear that McCain would be the Republican nominee, he decided to back out of the system because it would have limited his spending to $54 million through the end of August. According to the Post, he had already spent about that much through February.

So, McCain sent the FEC a letter informing them that he was opting out of the public financing system. But there was a problem. FEC Chairman David Mason informed McCain that it may not be legal for him to opt out of the financing system because he had already received benefit from the public monies. (as collateral for his bank loan) Unfortunately, four of the six FEC board seats were empty because the nomination process had stalled in the Senate. McCain's lawyers argue that, because the FEC had no quorum, the campaign is not obligated to follow its decisions. So, McCain pressed forward and has now spent well over the $54 million limit, ignoring the Chairman of the FEC.

Further complicating matters are ethical concerns about his bank loan. Ostensibly, McCain would have paid his loan back in one of two ways: 1) either his campaign would take off and he would be able to raise money from standard GOP sources, or 2) his campaign would flop and he would pay the loan back in March after receiving the public funding. Under the later scenario, McCain would have artificially kept his campaign going, long after he was politically dead, so that he could receive the $5.8 million to pay his loan back.

Certainly, the law did not intend for public monies to pay back bank loans for dead campaigns. McCain may be able to argue that his actions were technically legal, (though Chairman Mason apparently believes they may not be) but they sure don't jibe with his reputation as a straight-talking reformer -- and campaign finance reform, as you say, is McCain's "calling card".

So, given that, how exactly can McCain honestly call himself "the candidate who is prone to keeping his word" with respect to campaign finance?

Dodd!

http://dodd.senate.gov/index.php?q=node/4476

More on the FISA "Compromise"

Glenn Greenwald comments on the absurdity of the claims coming from Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer that the Democrats scored a major victory on the FISA rewrite.

Perhaps the most telling part is the udpate at the bottom: a Fox News poll that shows Republicans give Congress a 23% approval rating while Democrats give only 18%. So, in the wake of this major victory for the Democratic party, a Democratic majority in Congress has managed to score a higher approval rating among Republicans than among Democrats. Well played, guys.

Another point that Greenwald hits on is the strategy the Democrats seem to be employing here. Basically, they cede that the Republicans are better on national security, so they give in to all of the Republicans' demands to protect themselves from the GOP bludgeoning them with the "soft on defense" label. How pathetic -- especially when the Republicans have an abysmal record on national defense during the course of this administration.

Furthermore, the Republicans' lousy record on national defense isn't too cerebral a point to make to the public. If they're so good on national defense, why aren't we going after Osama bin Laden? If they're so good on national defense, why is our army struggling to recruit to such a degree that they're letting criminals in now? If they're so good on defense, why did they tell us that the Iraq war would only last a few weeks, and then, on May 2, 2003, why did Bush declare the war was over? If they're so good on national defense, why did they allow themselves to be duped by a con man (Ahmed Chalabi) and a source named "curveball" into believing that Saddam Hussein had an active WMD program? If they're so good on national defense, how did they manage to not prevent the 9/11 attacks after an August 2001 Presidential daily briefing told them that bin Laden was determined to strike in the US?

The Republicans have no standing with which to claim strength on national defense. Why are the Democrats passing legislation that shreds the 4th amendment instead of shining a public spotlight on the Republicans' national defense failures?

Rambling Sundry Thoughts on Current Happenings with the Texas Rangers

Gerald Laird pulled a hamstring today and was placed on the DL.

As much as I feel sorry for Laird, we just called up Max Ramirez from Frisco to replace him. Ramirez was the guy we got in return for Kenny Lofton last year and he has just been smoking hot all year in Frisco. He is batting .363 with 17HRs and has an on-base % of .457.

And, amazingly enough, he's not the top catcher in our farm system. That honor belongs to Taylor Teagarden who is a very good defensive catcher. (Ramirez is a slugger that happens to play catcher). I've heard a few people compare Teagarden to Pudge Rodriguez, though I doubt he's that good.

I am eagerly awaiting to see how Ramirez does in the majors.

Meanwhile, our über first base prospect, Chris Davis was named minor league player of the week by Baseball America. He hit .400 with 5HRs and 12RBIs last week. Also, Neftali Feliz was ranked #5 minor league player of the week, playing for our lower Class A team. Feliz came over in the Mark Teixeira trade and has been really good all year. He is apparently a big-time fastball-strikeout pitcher. I've heard he has the biggest "upside" of any of our pitching prospects -- that is, he has the biggest chance to become a "#1" starter. (you know, like Edinson Volquez...)

Speaking of Volquez, the man we gave up for Josh Hamilton went into Yankee Stadium and kicked some ass today. He is now 9-2 with a 1.71 ERA and 110 strikeouts. His 110 strikeouts leads MLB and the ERA is tops in MLB by half a run. It is also impressive that he's 9-2 on such a crappy team as Cincinnati.

The "pitching triple crown" consists of wins, strikeouts, and ERA. Currently, Josh Hamilton and Volquez each lead in two of three of their respective triple crown categories. Hamilton leads the AL in HRs and RBIs. He is #6 in batting average, 14 points behind A-Rod. Volquez is 3rd in wins in the NL, 2 behind Brandon Webb. Talk about a blockbuster trade.

On the new FISA "Compromise"

The Demorats in the U.S. House today have brokered a "compromise" with Republicans on a new version of the Foreign Intelligence and Surveillance Act. In this new version, the telecom companies that very plainly violated the law at the behest of the Bush administration will have immunity from prosecution if they can prove that they were, in fact, acting at the behest of the Bush administration.

What a joke! As Glenn Greenwald says, "When you read it, it's actually hard to believe that the Congress is about to make this into our law. Then again, this is the same Congress that abolished habeas corpus with the Military Commissions Act, and legalized George Bush's warrantless eavesdropping program with the "Protect America Act," so it shouldn't be hard to believe at all."

This is getting ridiculous. We can't keep making excuses to justify the Congress's pitiful lack of backbone. I recently listened to a speech given by Al Gore in January of 2006, when the details of the warrantless spying program were just coming to light. Someone ought to march into the House chamber and read this excerpt to them before they go to vote:

The executive branch time and again has co-opted Congress' role. And too often Congress has been a willing accomplice in the surrender of its own power.

Look, for example, at the congressional role in overseeing this massive, four-year eavesdropping campaign that, on its face, seemed so clearly to violate the Bill of Rights.

The president says he informed Congress. What he really means is that he talked with the chairman and ranking member of the House and Senate intelligence committees and, sometimes, the leaders of the House and Senate.

This small group, in turn, claims they were not given the full facts, though at least one of the committee leaders handwrote a letter of concern to the vice president.

And, though I sympathize with the awkward position, the difficult position in which these men and women were placed, I cannot disagree with the Liberty Coalition when it says that Democrats as well as Republicans in the Congress must share the blame for not taking sufficient action to protest and seek to prevent what they consider a grossly unconstitutional program.

Many did. Moreover, in the Congress as a whole, both House and Senate, the enhanced role of money in the re-election process, coupled with the sharply diminished role for reasoned deliberation and debate, has produced an atmosphere conducive to pervasive institutionalized corruption that some have fallen vulnerable to.

The Abramoff scandal is but the tip of a giant iceberg threatening the integrity of our legislative branch of government.

And it is the pitiful state of our legislative state which primarily explains the failure of our vaunted checks and balances to prevent the dangerous overreach by the executive branch now threatening a radical transformation of the American system.

I call upon members of Congress in both parties to uphold your oath of office and defend the Constitution. Stop going along to get along. Start acting like the independent and co-equal branch of American government that you are supposed to be under the Constitution of our country.

I hope the folks at Daily Kos and TPM are taking notes. Any Democrat who votes for this bill ought to have a well-funded opponent in the primary next time they're up for election. We must demand better from our elected officials.

On a side note, what a disaster it is that Gore wasn't our President over the past eight years instead of this unmitigated disaster of an administration. For more of Gore's views on matters like this, I highly recommend his book The Assault on Reason which should be required reading for all voters.

Update: I am sorely disappointed to find that Barack Obama has endorsed this terrible bill. I expect better from a constitutional law professor and from someone promising to bring "change." I'm not sure what sort of change he has planned, but I was kind of hoping for the kind that restores the rule of law to the Executive Branch of our government.

Privatizing the Military

As any good Republican will tell you, privatization is always a good move.

MSNBC Channeling Karl Rove

One of the more obnoxious media narratives of this campaign season is the one that suggests that Obama substitutes "soaring rhetoric" in place of substance. I have heard variations of that narrative bouncing around ever since I first saw it in this Wall Street Journal op-ed by Karl Rove.

It has survived despite Obama's groundbreaking speech on race relations and despite such substantive comments from his opponents as "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb bomb Iran." So, today when I saw MSNBC's web page leading with the below headline, I felt compelled to write them a letter.

To the Editor:

I thought your headline today "Can 'substance' trump star power?" was offensive. It parrots the Republican talking point that Barack Obama is a good speaker, but that there is no substance to his words.

Meanwhile, John McCain's record includes the following:
- He repeatedly asserted at a press conference that Iran was training al Qaeda operatives, evidently unaware that Iran is a Shiite country and that al Qaeda is a Sunni organization. Joe Lieberman eventually had to lean over and correct him.

- He keeps accusing Obama of wanting to talk with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad even though the President of Iran has no power in the foreign policy arena. Any diplomatic discussion with Iran would be with Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His name, of course, is less radioactive politically than Ahmadinejad.

"Substance" requires a command of the facts, and McCain who presents himself as a foreign policy guru, has some serious cracks in his armor. Continuing:

- He intentionally avoids "substance" when he resorts to fear and smear tactics such as pointing out that Hamas had endorsed Obama and comparing Obama's proposal of diplomacy with Iran to Neville Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler in the lead-up to World War II.

- He sang "Bomb, bomb, bomb; bomb, bomb Iran" to the tune of the Beach Boys "Barbara Ann" at a campaign rally -- a highly "substantive" look into his philosophy on American foreign policy.

To be certain, all presidential candidates deliver countless speeches that lack substance in large part. Leading a frenetic crowd in a chant of "Yes we can!" is hardly an intelligent discussion of the issues. But those are stump speeches whose purpose is to rally the crowd. And John McCain gives just as many as Obama does. But Obama has also given an historic and seriously thought provoking speech on American race relations and actually does have a comprehensive policy platform that epitomizes "substance."

For example, my area of expertise is in computers. I am the IT Director for my company. I watched Obama's speech at the Google campus on Net Neutrality and found him to be incredibly well informed on some fairly technical issues. I feel, from watching him speak extemporaneously in that video, that Obama not only has a platform that will truly bring our government into the information age, but that he understands how to achieve that goal on a fundamental level.

That is what substance is. It doesn't come from wrinkles in the face and it doesn't even come from being a war hero. It comes from a combination of intelligence, a command of the facts, and good judgment. Early in the campaign, Karl Rove wrote an Op-Ed in The Wall Street Journal accusing Obama of lacking substance. Why, in the absence of corroborating evidence, are the claims of such an obvious partisan hack allowed to reverberate on the top headline on your web page?

Wow

Georgia Republican Party chairwoman Sue Everhart said Saturday that the party's presumed presidential nominee has a lot in common with Jesus Christ.

"John McCain is kind of like Jesus Christ on the cross," Everhart said as she began the second day of the state GOP convention. "He never denounced God, either."

Wow.

Stars, redux

It's amazing how teams in sports can look invincible one day, and mediocre the next. It appears the Detroit Red Wings team that I saw in Game 3 was a trick of the eye. Or, perhaps the Stars themselves were an illusion. The two teams that showed up in games 4 and 5 bear little resemblance to the teams I wrote about in the previous post. Suddenly, the Red Wings can't score at will and the Stars are capable of entering the offensive zone.

Marty Turco has been nothing short of a brick wall in the last two games and the team is playing some inspired hockey. The only people that are more surprised than I am about this turnaround appear to be the Detroit Red Wings, who are clearly on their heels now. The Stars are still an extreme long shot to reach the Stanley Cup Finals, but they have emphatically proven that they belong in the Western Conference Finals. If Game 5 ends up being the last hurrah of the season, the Stars have nothing to hang their heads about. For the first time in several years, a Dallas team has managed to not end their season with a giant face plant. We may not be parading the Stanley Cup through downtown Dallas this year, but we finally have a team we can be proud of.

Thoughts on the Stars

When I was in high school, our football team did generally the same thing every year. We would dominate during the regular season -- usually going undefeated -- and then we'd win a playoff game or two. But then we would hit a brick wall. Some other team from somewhere else in the state would waltz in and just beat the ever loving snot out of us. It was bizarre, frankly, watching a team dominate for an entire year, only to lose by 35 points in the 3rd round of the playoffs. But that's what we did every year I was there.

Though the Stars certainly haven't been dominant this season, this series against Detroit has a similar feel to those old high school playoff games. Against San Jose and Anaheim, the Stars could win if they played well, and they were fully capable of hanging around and making things interesting even when they didn't play well. But against Detroit, I feel like the Stars could play their best game of the season and still lose. It's like watching a college team play against a high school team.

Midway through the first period last night, Detroit coach Mike Babcock called a timeout (which I thought was odd at the time). The Stars had been making a push and were generally hanging around. I think Babcock wanted to pull his team aside to tell them something along the lines of: "You know, guys...I know the plane flight was long and that you are looking forward to eating some good Texas barbeque tonight, but that doesn't mean we need to allow this to be a competitive game. Frankly, it's rude getting the crowd's hopes up like that. I'm just asking for a little bit of effort here. Get ahead by a couple of goals and then prevent the Stars from getting past the blue line. It's not rocket science, guys. Go team!" and then, he turned to his assistant coach. "Man... I haven't done that much coaching in weeks. I think I'm going to go take a nap. Could you handle things for the rest of the period?"

I think the Stars could play the Red Wings 20 times and they'd lose every game. So, for the first time as a sports fan, I am not particularly upset that my team is losing in the playoffs. We aren't beating ourselves; we're not grossly underperforming. We just ran into a team that is waaaaay better than us. And they're kicking our ass.

On a side note, I noticed that the Sharks fired Ron Wilson. Evidently, they wanted the privilege of getting slaughtered by the Red Wings.

McCain's Iraq Strategy

The New Yorker's Rick Hertzberg on John McCain's Iraq strategy:

McCain wants to stay in Iraq until no more Americans are getting killed, no matter how long it takes and how many Americans get killed achieving that goal -- that is, the goal of not getting any more Americans killed. And once that goal is achieved, we'll stay.

John McCain: StraightTalkMaverickReformer™

Mark Penn is the Smartest Man Alive

From Time Magazine:

Clinton picked people for her team primarily for their loyalty to her, instead of their mastery of the game.

That became abundantly clear in a strategy session last year, according to two people who were there. As aides looked over the campaign calendar, chief strategist Mark Penn confidently predicted that an early win in California would put her over the top because she would pick up all the state's 370 delegates.

It sounded smart, but as every high school civics student now knows, Penn was wrong: Democrats, unlike the Republicans, apportion their delegates according to vote totals, rather than allowing any state to award them winner-take-all.

Sitting nearby, veteran Democratic insider Harold M. Ickes, who had helped write those rules, was horrified -- and let Penn know it. "How can it possibly be," Ickes asked, "that the much vaunted chief strategist doesn't understand proportional allocation?"

And yet the strategy remained the same, with the campaign making its bet on big-state victories. Even now, it can seem as if they don't get it. Both Bill and Hillary have noted plaintively that if Democrats had the same winner-take-all rules as Republicans, she'd be the nominee.

What is CNN thinking?

CNN.com, the web site of the Most Trusted Name In News(tm), appears to have been authored by Terry McAuliffe this evening. Either that, or it is a takeoff of Stephen Colbert's bit the "No Fact Zone."

In an evening where Barack Obama outperformed almost every poll in both Indiana and North Carolina, and came through the night with a boost to his pledged delegate lead, all but squashing Hillary Clinton's already remote chances at winning, this is how CNN decided to cover the news:

Also, its top two headlines under "Election Coverage" are:

• Delegate Counter: Can Obama be Overtaken?


• Ticker: Limbaugh's Operation a Success?

Just as Hillary proclaimed that she wouldn't "put her lot in with economists" on the gas tax issue, CNN has decided not to put its lot in with reality. Crikey...

Worked Out For Both Teams...

Don't look now, but the major league leader in RBIs and strikeouts are Josh Hamilton and Edinson Volquez, respectively.

Never would have thought Volquez would be this good so fast. I suppose it does help to be pitching in Quadruple-A (aka the National League). I have a really hard time picturing him having the same success in a Rangers uniform, but who knows...

I still think this was a great trade for the Rangers. It's a very well-kept secret that our offense is, in some ways, weaker than our pitching. When Millwood and Padilla pitch the way they have in the past, (relatively competently) our rotation can be a small step above abysmal. But, with the loss of Teixeira, we really had a gaping hole in our lineup. It appears Hamilton may fill Teixeira's shoes and then some. Plus, he's a very good center fielder. Today, he saved Every Day Eddie's butt with a spectacular diving catch against the wall.

That being said, it is a little painful watching Volquez dominate for someone else. I had high hopes for him here.

Exxon

New York Times headline today: For Exxon Mobil, $10.9 Billion Profit Disappoints

If they don't want it, I'll take it off their hands. I can think of 3 or 4 things I could buy with $10.9 billion.

Our National Discourse

Tom Friedman today:

The McCain-Clinton proposal is a reminder to me that the biggest energy crisis we have in our country today is the energy to be serious — the energy to do big things in a sustained, focused and intelligent way. We are in the midst of a national political brownout.

I don't always like Friedman, (in fact, he's pretty goofy more often than not) but he hit the nail on the head there. We are currently in the middle of a dark period in our nation's history.

We appear to be past the worst of it. Back in the 2004 campaign, John Kerry had to refrain from being too critical of Bush because the majority of Americans would be shocked to the point of disbelief to be exposed to a dose of reality. The media has been so bad that there are just some things that you can't say in a public forum because the American public isn't ready to hear it.

I work in a company that is full of people who are in the 20% or so of the population that would support Bush even if he went on national TV and started clubbing kittens with a baseball bat. When politics comes up, I just keep my mouth shut. They're not even on the same planet as me. Their core beliefs are built on layers and layers and layers of Fox News propaganda. If I were to, for instance, describe the Valerie Plame/Scooter Libby scandal from start to finish, they would think I had gone mad. It would be like I told them the sky wasn't blue or that the Rangers will win 80 games.

The cause of this divorce from reality in our discourse is two-fold: First and foremost, the major players in our media are owned by an increasingly small number of corporations: GE, Viacom, Disney, Time Warner, and News Corp. That's just about it. And those companies all have infiltrated their respective news branches and actively filter content, and hire and fire employees based on corporate loyalty. Secondly, the media has been corrupted by GOP intimidation. The Republicans have managed to convince everybody that the media has a strong liberal bias -- never mind that much of the media has become little more than a fog horn for the Bush administration; they're still liberal!! Whenever the media is critical of the administration, they can expect to get angry phone calls and threats from all directions. Simply put, they're just scared of the Republicans.

As I have discussed previously, I believe talk radio is also part of the problem. Anti-intellectualism is at an all-time high. Many attempts to discuss issues intelligently are ridiculed when, obviously, an intelligent discussion of issues is exactly what we need.

I'm not sure exactly how we can pull out of this tailspin we're in, but I do know the Internets need to be heavily involved. That's why Net Neutrality is so important. I didn't pay a dime to start this blog, yet it is readily available to anybody in the entire world who wants to read it. If my blog were to take off (stick with me now) for whatever reason, and start getting 700,000 hits per day or something, my content providers are going to want to charge me for that exposure -- but I shouldn't be charged. That's precisely how we will tear television's death grip on the national dialog away.

This is also another reason I'm supporting Barack Obama. If you watch his speech to the Google campus on technology, you'll see that he plans to not only push for Net Neutrality, but also he wants to use the Internet to help make the operations of the federal government much more transparent. The more transparency there is, the less corruption is possible, and the harder it becomes for the media to spin a narrative away from reality.

Maybe some day, I will be able to walk up to my coworkers and tell them that George W. Bush is trying to usurp power away from Congress and the Supreme Court, that he is openly violating the Constitution by holding "enemy combatants" in prison indefinitely without access to a lawyer or to our legal system, that he is actively covering for Alberto Gonzalez in the U.S. Attorney scandal, and covering for somebody high up (probably Cheney) in the Plame scandal and not have them stare at me like I'm from outer space.

Radio Silence on Military Analyst Scandal

Good article by Glen Greenwald at Salon

Final Thoughts on Rev. Wright (promise)

I watched a few minutes of the Q&A session in Washington yesterday.

Rev. Wright is clearly a very intelligent man and a very good speaker. But it appears to me that he's been living in an atmosphere were conspiracy theories are engendered and that he is under the illusion that American society hasn't made significant strides to move past Jim Crow. Just as Obama said in his Philadelphia speech, Wright seems to think that American society is static.

The sad thing to me is that, watching his speeches and the vast majority of his comments, I really like the guy. 95% of what he says is good. The problem is, the remaining 5% is talking about how the U.S. government invented AIDS to keep the black man down and that we brought 9/11 on ourselves because our government conducts state sponsored terrorism.

Coming back to Bob Herbert's column, I still don't think that Wright was intentionally trying to hurt Obama. I think he believes that he is charismatic enough that he could just charm the country into liking him, given enough air time. He seemed to be legitimately unaware that claiming the U.S. government invented AIDS might not play well with, well, anybody.

Also, on Farrakhan, Rev. Wright's answer wasn't as bad as Obama made it out to be. When he called Farrakhan "great," he made it pretty clear he that he meant it in the "Time Magazine Person of the Year" sense. I don't know anything about Louis Farrakhan aside from skimming his Wikipedia page, but clearly, he's politically radioactive. Obama doesn't have the luxury to equivocate or speak in shades of gray in that area. I'm not sure if Farrakhan even deserves that consideration, but Wright's point seemed to be that Farrakhan isn't all bad, not that he was one of the greatest (as in a force for good) people of the 20th century.

Anyhoo, I it will be nice when this stuff blows over (if it ever does). It surely can't be helping Obama much in Indiana and North Carolina.

More Reverend Wright

Updated Below -- I hadn't seen the really stupid stuff Wright said when I made this post originally. I would still stand by what I say here had he just stopped with the speech in Detroit, but evidently, he felt the need to go off the deep end on national TV the next day in Washington.

It appears that Obama will be reacting to Rev. Wright's latest by recoiling and further distancing himself.

From a political standpoint -- in our current political climate -- I can certainly understand that, but I still found Rev. Wright to be engaging, funny, and informative in his speech to the NAACP (though I haven't seen his comments to the National Press Club). It just goes to show how backwards our national discourse has become. When somebody takes on a media narrative on a level that a 5th grader might not understand, it is seen as a blunder.

Bob Herbert says that Rev. Wright was intentionally trying to hurt Obama. Having watched his speech, I thought it was pretty clear that he was trying to help Obama. His goal was to present himself to the country as a reasonable person, so he would not be seen as a caricature from a YouTube clip. I felt he accomplished that. Now, clearly, Wright is a very passionate person, and I didn't agree with everything he said, but he is not some radical hate-monger.

Rev. Wright had every right to be angry about the treatment he has received from the media. Given 30 years of sermons from any preacher in the country, you could probably come away with a handful of 15-second sound bytes that sound bad. And that is especially true of a black preacher because their speaking style is so thoroughly foreign to most of the population. So, I am sad to see that Obama is going to throw him under the bus. Politically, I understand the decision, but it makes me sad nonetheless. If our media was willing to cover a complicated and controversial issue with honesty and integrity, Obama wouldn't be in this position. But we don't, and there is virtually nothing Obama can do to prevent the media from framing Wright's words as anything but radical Black Panther hate speech.

Ugh!! We have got to fix the media in this country.

Update: Now even my Dad disagrees with me. I didn't see Wright's comments the following day in Washington. Did he set something on fire?

Update #2: I might add that I do not currently have a functioning television at home, so my views here are based on my viewing of Wright's speech, unclouded and unperverted by the flatulence that undoubtably followed from the Chris Matthewses and Wolf Blitzers of the world.

Look: the political timing of the speech was undoubtedly poor. We're knee deep in the "silly season" of politics where everything is blown out of proportion already, so long, passionate, thought-provoking speeches are probably sensory overload. And Hillary will do everything in her power to exploit it to the nth degree. But that doesn't mean it was a bad speech. It just means Hillary is a whore. (politically speaking)

Update #3: It seems that the fuss was indeed caused by the appearance at the National Press Club. I will watch that and make a new blog post if I feel it is necessary.

Update #4: Couple Wright quotes from the National Press Club meeting:

"I said to Barack Obama last year, 'If you get elected, November the 5th, I'm coming after you, because you'll be representing a government whose policies grind under people.' All right? It's about policy, not the American people."

"You cannot do terrorism on other people and expect it never to come back on you. Those are biblical principles, not Jeremiah Wright bombastic, divisive principles."

OK, so it seems I spoke too soon. I certainly am not on board with those statements. If he had just given his speech and stopped, it would have been fine.

Update #5: I've been reading through some of Obama's comments today. Obviously, if I had known that Wright had been saying that he thought the U.S. government was intentionally spreading AIDS or that Farrakhan was a great voice in the 20th century, I wouldn't have made the preceding post. I don't understand how that's the same guy who gave the speech in Detroit... oh, well

More Propaganda

The Pentagon was shocked -- shocked! -- to learn that its relationship with ex-military officers, turned Pentagon lobbyists could be viewed as improper.

Reverend Wright

Update 4/30/08: I still like this speech, and there really isn't anything horribly offensive in it. There are a few things in there that raised my eyebrows, such as the assertion that black children all learn differently than whites do, but, on the whole, I thought it was an interesting and entertaining speech. However, several of his comments the day after this speech in Washington were obviously ridiculous. I still think that most commentators that are blasting Rev. Wright now probably were only exposed to sound bytes of the worst parts of his comments in Washington. Really, the vast, vast majority of what he says is good. What's bad is his timing and the 5-10% of what he says that is just bat sh*t crazy. I still recommend watching this speech. There is much more nuance to this issue than has been portrayed.

I saw a clip of Rev. Wright's speech to the NAACP on CNN.com earlier, and I went to track down the whole speech. After watching CNN's clip, they clearly tried to take the most incendiary segments to prop up their Rev. Wright story against Obama. But, listen to the speech -- the whole speech -- for yourself. I thought it was a hell of a good speech. (it's about 45 minutes long -- oh, and the Fox News commentator's reaction to the introduction is priceless)

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Mavs Rip Fans' Hearts Out (again)

The date was June 13, 2006 in Miami, Florida. The Dallas Mavericks were up 2 games to none against the Miami Heat in the 2006 NBA Finals, looking to close out a relatively easy win in Game 3. The fourth quarter was about half finished, and the Mavs were nursing a sizable lead they had held for virtually the entire game. Neither game 1 nor 2 had been competitive, and the Mavs were toying with their prey in Game 3. At the time, the Mavericks had beaten the Heat six straight times, dating back to the 2004-2005 season and most of those wins had been blow-outs, too. Dallas mayor Laura Miller was busy back at home planning the parade route.

But then something funny happened: the Mavericks suddenly lost the ability to play competently in the playoffs. The floor dropped out from under them, and, to this date, nearly 2 years later, they haven't recovered. The same team that had beaten the two powerhouses of the Western Conference (Phoenix and San Antonio) suddenly couldn't beat anybody in the playoffs. The Heat went onto win Game 3. And then 4, 5, and 6 as well. Instead of a parade in downtown Dallas, Dwayne Wade started his own parade starring himself. To the free throw line.

At the time, I cursed Bennett Salvatore, the referee who called a bogus foul on Wade from half-way across the court at the end of Game 5 (which I attended). But, now I realize the team that I had been rooting for had already left the building. With 7 minutes remaining in Game 3, they checked out and never returned.

The following year, the Mavericks mounted a very impressive mirage during the regular season. They won a staggering 67 games, despite losing the first 4 in a row. Dirk Nowitzki was named MVP, and the city of Dallas was yet again primed for a run at the title. The playoff seeding favored Dallas in a very big way: unlike the previous year, they would only have to beat one of their rivals because Phoenix and San Antonio were on course to face each other in the second round. But the instant the ball dropped and the playoffs began, the strange, lifeless team that lost to Miami the previous year reemerged. Our first-round opponent Golden State had barely even made the playoffs and, after they had dispatched the zombie-Mavs, were hardly challenging to the Utah Jazz in the second round. But, for some inexplicable reason, the Mavericks were unable even to mount token resistance.

Fast forward to today. The Mavericks didn't bother with another 67-win mirage this year. Instead, they half-heartedly sleepwalked through the regular season, promising this time they would finally revert to the fine form they had displayed in the opening rounds of the 2006 playoffs. We Mavericks' fans turned on our televisions to cheer on our 7th-seeded team, hoping beyond hope that the real Mavericks would finally come back to us.

But if the first four games of this current series against the New Orleans Hornets -- a team that we had beaten 21 consecutive times coming into this year; and a team that hadn't won at Dallas since 1998 -- are any indication, the magical run through the 2006 playoffs is all the Mavs are going to give us. With Devin Harris traded away, Jason Kidd getting older by the second, and two first-round draft picks lost to the New Jersey Nets, the window on the Mavs' championship aspirations appears to have shut and sealed itself. Our chances to see Dirk Nowitzki hold the Larry O'Brien trophy over his head are becoming maddeningly slim.

It is truly painful to remember back to June 13, 2006 when that seemed inevitable. I much prefer the Rangers' style of losing. They show their colors early and often, so we fans know to not get our hopes up.

Rangers Hit Rock Bottom (again)

Well, your Texas Rangers hit a new low yesterday. Facing Kenny Rogers who is finally starting to show his age, the Rangers pelted out 5 runs through the second inning. And then the wheels fell off:

• Luis Mendoza apparently was hiding a shoulder injury which cropped up in the second inning, preventing his breaking pitches from breaking. The Tigers took advantage and quickly erased the 5-run lead in the bottom of the 2nd.


• Frank Francisco, who had been lights out in AAA, relieved Mendoza and looked less than sharp, giving up two runs in 2 1/3 innings


• In the top of the 4th, the Rangers loaded the bases with one out. Josh Hamilton -- one of the few bright spots on the team -- walked to score a run, but then Milton Bradley grounded into a double play. The Rangers must be on pace to set a record for men left on base...


• Jamie Wright entered the game with a 0.82 ERA. 1 1/3 innings later, he had a 4.38 ERA.


• Wes Littleton followed. Entering the game, his ERA was 2.35. Afterwards, it was 8.64. Wright and Littleton were the masterminds behind the Tigers' 11-run 6th inning.


• Joaquin Benoit came in and continued his season-long search for the strike zone. So far this season, Benoit is apt to either strike out the side on 10 pitches or walk the first 5 batters he faces.


• CJ Wilson was the last Ranger pitcher and the only one to not allow a run.

Total damage: 19 runs on only 14 hits. The Rangers also issued 10 walks. 10!! Amazingly, they only committed one error, down from their season norm of 12 or whatever it is.

The Rangers are playing some seriously ugly baseball. This is bad even for a rebuilding team. At some point, somebody's got to get fired for this.

A side note: I'm much too lazy to look at my blog's template today, but, I have to say, the flower-looking bullet points really need to go. Not sure what Blogger was thinking with those...

Straight Talk Express

A conversation between George Stephanopoulos and John McCain:

GS - A lot of Senator Obama's allies and others say that you should condemn the comments of Reverend John Hagee, an evangelical pastor...

JM - Oh, I do. And I did. I said that any comments that he made about the Catholic Church I strongly condemn.

GS - Yet you solicited and accepted his endorsement.

JM - Yes, indeed I did.

GS - So, was it a mistake to solicit and accept his endorsement?

JM - Oh, probably. Sure.

GS - So you no longer want his endorsement?

JM - I'm glad to have his endorsement. I condemn remarks that are...that are..uh...that are any way viewed as anti-anything.

Hagee, incidentally, has referred to the Roman Catholic Church as "the Great Whore" and accused them of having "a Godless theology" and that it spawns a "theology of hate."

Additionally, Hagee claims that the Qur'an contains a "mandate to kill Christians and Jews." He said that Hurricane Katrina was God punishing New Orleans for "a level of sin that was offensive to God". More from Wikipedia:

Another reason for God's wrath [against New Orleans], Hagee claims, was the Bush administration's pressure on Israel to abandon settlements and the associated land. Therefore, God took American land in a "tit for tat" exchange.

Additionally, Hagee received $1.25 million in 2001 alone for his position as CEO of the non-profit corporation Global Evangelism Television. Hagee later argued: "I deserve every dime I'm getting."

Right... enough of that. Let's attack Obama some more for not wearing a flag pin.

"Most readers will be shocked by the clear record of history linking Adolf Hitler and the Roman Catholic Church in a conspiracy to exterminate the Jews." - Rev. John Hagee, 2007

Microsoft and OOXML

According to this Slashdot article, Microsoft Office 2007 fails badly to meet the official OOXML specification. So, after bullying their way into making OOXML the ISO standard, Microsoft's real strategy is now surfacing.

Microsoft's nefarious, strong-arm tactics in getting OOXML passed through ISO showed the company was very determined to defeat the competing ODF format. Why would Microsoft care so much about an ISO standard? They're already the de facto standard. Well, it turns out that Microsoft Office 2007, which purports to be using the OOXML file format, completely fails to conform to the official ISO specification. ZDNet ran Office 2007 through a series of tests and found 122,000 instances where it failed to conform to the standard.

So now we're about to enter an era where there is an official standard called OOXML, while the de facto standard remains Microsoft's proprietary format. Only this time, they've dressed up their proprietary format with the aura of being a public standard. Microsoft is betting that nobody will notice the difference. (or at least that nobody important notices)

It sure would be nice if our government would step in an actually regulate the Microsoft monopoly. The abuse of monopolistic advantages has become their central business strategy.

Propaganda

The New York Times has a very important article up for tomorrow's paper that confirms in detail what has long been suspected. This administration has been behind a well-organized, pervasive propaganda machine with the goal of brainwashing the American people to fall in lockstep behind their policies.

The Bush administration has already been caught paying journalists, and planting fake news stories on TV. And now, the Times has uncovered a far-reaching scheme involving retired military officers. Many of these military officials, after leaving the army, became lobbyists for defense contractors and other industries that bid for Pentagon contracts. As lobbyists, they told their clients that they could use their military connections to help them get an inner track towards lucrative defense contracts. Clearly, maintaining good favor with the Pentagon was essential to their livelihood.

Taking advantage of this situation, the Pentagon recruited many of these ex-military lobbyists to be "talking heads" on TV. They would get to meet personally with Donald Rumsfeld and other high-level Pentagon officials, -- which was good for business -- and the Pentagon would issue them pro-administration talking points. The next day, they would disperse and appear on CNN, Fox, NBC, etc..., presented to the public as objective ex-military officers, and parrot the administration's line. The public was rarely, if ever, informed of the fact that most of them were also simultaneously working as Pentagon lobbyists.

If any of them were ever caught criticizing the administration, their access to the Pentagon would be cut off. The Times uncovered emails showing that many of them privately had serious misgivings about the administration's story, but, as soon as the cameras turned on, they turned into loyal puppets.

These tactics are frighteningly reminiscent of those employed by the Nazis in their rise to power in Germany. I hope the media will resist the temptation to brush this under the rug. Obviously, they will be severely tempted, given that it speaks very poorly to their credibility. Maybe Clinton and Obama will start bringing it up in their stump speeches... That might force the spotlight on it a little.

Update: I'm excited. Kelly linked to my blog, so someone may actually read it now. :) Seriously, though, I highly recommend reading the whole New York Times article. It is quite long, I know, but the details are really damning.

Basketball

You know... from 2004-2005, there were 3 point guards taken within the top-5 picks:

• Devin Harris


• Deron Williams


• Chris Paul

Nothing against Devin Harris, but, damn, sure would have been nice to have one of those other two.

Journalism

David Brooks today:

The journalist’s job is to make politicians uncomfortable...

I suppose the next debate will feature the candidates in a room at 110 degrees fahrenheit while being poked with sharp sticks.

Seriously, though, yesterday's debate was truly awful.

Rangers

The truly painful thing about the Rangers is that they take their mediocre to average talent and still manage to underperform.

The Rangers hitters have an OPS (on base percentage + slugging percentage) of .735 --right at the AL average. But, with runners in scoring position, they've managed a pathetic .644, which is second-worst ahead only of the Yankees.

And then there's the fielding. They lead the AL in errors with 14. So, over all, they have an average to slightly above average offense that suddenly goes stone cold with runners in scoring position. And they are routinely flubbing playable balls. The Rangers lead the world in unearned runs (well, except for the Phillies).

The pitching has actually been decent. Jennings has been awful, but Millwood, Padilla, and Gabbard have been good. And the bullpen (except for Kazuo "careful how you say it!" Fukumori) has been decent -- especially by Rangers standards. Maybe we need to hire a psychologist for the position players.

This recent stretch of 5 straight losses feels so much like last season where the team seemed to invent a new way to lose every day. One day, the hitters, and the relievers would be good, but the starter would suddenly have his worst game in 10 years. And the next day, the starter would go 7 strong innings, only to have the offense get totally shut down by a below average pitcher. I can't count the number of times I've heard Eric Nadel say, "Well, this guy has really struggled this year, but he really seems to be throwing well today." The Rangers consistently bring the best out of their opponents. I understand the team is rebuilding (as always), but at some point, they need to lay a solid foundation. Our talented minor leaguers shouldn't look up a the big league club and see a circus.

I keep hearing that the Rangers are pressing -- that they're trying too hard. Since the players are evidently not capable of getting out of this funk by themselves, the manager needs to do something. I think Ron Washington is trying. He called a team meeting the other day. But, if this keeps on for much longer, you gotta start wondering if he's in over his head. The Rangers need one hell of a good manager to exorcise all of their demons... I'm beginning to seriously doubt Ron Washington is up to the task.

Fast

IBM has released a new Power6 processor that they claim is the fastest in the world.  The Power6, like the IBM processors that run the XBox 360, require water cooling. IBM Chief Technology Officer, Bernard Meyerson comments:

...the faster chips run, the hotter they get, and IBM has created water-cooling systems akin to the radiators in cars to keep its processors from overheating. Not doing so, Meyerson quipped, "results in setting fire to the user, which is bad."

I think IBM has Meyerson in the wrong job. Move that guy over to the marketing department. I can see their new slogan: "IBM Processors: So fast, they can self-combust and set your pants on fire before you can get out of your chair!"

Yahoo! Sports!

I guess both teams were just really cold in the first quarter.

Let's see how long it takes Yahoo! to catch this one.

Update:10 days later, and it's still there. :)

Glenn Beck

It's not every day that I see something on the internets that makes my head spin, but today, on CNN.com, Glenn Beck (!) of all people wrote an article that didn't completely offend my senses.

Now, this is not Pulitzer Prize material (nor remotely close) but he actually comes across as reasonable. And that's saying something, because Glenn Beck is completely insane.

Anyway, I felt the need to put this up here since I harped on him a few weeks ago. When a conservative talk radio (turned tv) host says something like this, I'll at least tip my hat:

If you want to teach our kids about Vietnam, that's fine, but you better also teach them about World War II. And if you want to talk about our wars, you better also talk about our welfare. America is one of the most charitable countries in the history of the world, yet our mistakes are always glorified far more than our generosity. That needs to be reversed.

Anti-intellectualism

Nick Kristof has a really good column up in the Times today.

The extent to which anti-intellectualism has infiltrated our society is really alarming. Despite a disastrous war in Iraq, a tanking economy, and a power-hungry administration threatening to unravel some of the most basic tenants of our democracy, our evening news continues to be dominated by Britney Spears, Lindsey Lohan, and the pretty missing white girl from rural Kansas. But, perhaps more importantly, on the few occasions the media turns its attention towards politics, or the war, or some other serious matter, they rarely engage in substantive dialog. Rather, they talk about how certain events will affect public opinion without engaging in any discussion of the events themselves.

On talk radio, anti-intellectualism is taken to new heights. I can't listen to talk radio for more than about 5 minutes without becoming nauseous. But, on occasion, my morbid curiosity wins out and I'll tune in for a few minutes. You'll notice that all talk radio hosts speak with a similar cadence. It's loud, and each point they make comes with an understood clause that "if you don't agree with me, you're a pussy." I listened to a long rant several months ago about why Mexican immigrants were threatening to destroy our country. The "illegals," as they were repeatedly called, are draining our resources and they <gasp> don't speak English! So, we must kick them all out, regardless of what the repercussions may be. Repercussions are for pussies.

A similar speaking cadence and style has spilled over into sports talk radio. Try making this argument to someone who listens to The Ticket regularly: The Texas Rangers have a solid bullpen. Never mind that the Rangers had the 5th best bullpen ERA in baseball last year (3.69), and had a 33-22 won/loss record, despite logging the most innings of any bullpen in MLB due to an historically awful starting rotation. In fact, a reasonable argument can be made that the Rangers had the best bullpen in baseball last year. But, clearly, I'm a pussy for making such a ridiculous assertion.

Last week, I listened to several great American speeches, after hearing Obama's speech on race. If you have ~45 minutes to spare, listen to FDR's Arsenal of Democracy speech. I think it ought to be required listening for every voter. It really drives home the point that the threat we face from Islamic terrorism is a minor annoyance compared to the Nazis. They had taken over most of continental Europe, and people legitimately worried that Hitler would be able to take over the entire world. And, yet, in the face of that, when FDR addressed the nation, he didn't try to obfuscate or dumb down his points. He made some rather complex arguments, expecting his listeners to keep up with him. If George W. Bush went in front of the TV tonight, and delivered a speech with coherent, complex arguments, that didn't try to obfuscate the facts, I might go into shock.

As Kristof points out, the really scary thing about all of this is that the rest of the world is not inflicted by this anti-intellectual disease. If you tune to CNN International, they broadcast actual news. How in the world can we expect to compete with the rest of the world if our citizens are not only poorly educated, but willfully so? I sure hope the spectacular failure of the Bush administration will mark the beginning of the end of this dark era for our country. It will be difficult to unwind all of the damage it has inflicted.

wow

This is a new low for Hillary...

Some of the very nastiest rumors about the Clintons in the 90s were started by (or at least heavily stoked by) Richard Mellon Scaife. Now, she's using Scaife to attack Obama.

Hillary, for the love of God, please just drop out. Go back to New York and be a really good member of the Senate. As I read earlier today, you're employing the "Tonya Harding Strategy." Just stop it. Go back to New York while you still have a shred of dignity left.

Obama's Speech and Various Other Ramblings

Unless you're living in a cave (or are a habitué of the Fox News Channel), you have probably at least heard people talking about the speech Barack Obama gave on race relations the other day. It was a very fine speech, and reaffirmed my belief that we very well may be witnessing the rise of a truly great American president.

It has been compared to JFK's speech on Catholicism, and even has been mentioned as one of the very best speeches on any topic delivered in the past 50 years. Given the dearth of rhetorical prowess from our recent leaders, I decided to peruse the Internets for other great American speeches so I could better view Obama's in perspective.

I found a page, entitled "Top 100 American speeches of the 20th Century." I listened to bits and pieces of several of them, including JFK's and FDR's first inaugural addresses, both of Barbara Jordan's speeches and the RFK speech after the MLK assassination. A couple observations:

1. Barbara Jordan was one hell of a good speaker.
2. It's impressive how often JFK made his way onto this list, given his relatively short tenure in the spotlight.
3. It's really too bad that we don't have any recordings (or at least this site doesn't) of Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson.

I also listened to FDR's famous "Four Freedoms" speech which delivered for the 1941 State of the Union address. In the speech, Roosevelt discusses the very real possibility that the Germans would eventually try to invade the U.S.:

The first phase of the invasion of this hemisphere would not be the landing of regular troops. The necessary strategic points would be occupied by secret agents and by their dupes -- and great numbers of them are already here and in Latin America. As long as the aggressor nations maintain the offensive they, not we, will choose the time and the place and the method of their attack.

And that is why the future of all the American Republics is today in serious danger. That is why this annual message to the Congress is unique in our history. That is why every member of the executive branch of the government and every member of the Congress face great responsibility, great accountability. The need of the moment is that our actions and our policy should be devoted primarily -- almost exclusively -- to meeting this foreign peril. For all our domestic problems are now a part of the great emergency.

In every State of the Union speech I've ever seen, the President will proclaim, "I am pleased to announce that the State of the Union is strong!" . Any other admission would be dangerous politically, and politicians just don't subject themselves to unnecessary risk. But, in 1941, Roosevelt delivered this line:

Therefore, as your President, performing my constitutional duty to "give to the Congress information of the state of the union," I find it unhappily necessary to report that the future and the safety of our country and of our democracy are overwhelmingly involved in events far beyond our borders.

And, shorty later, this:

In times like these it is immature -- and, incidentally, untrue -- for anybody to brag that an unprepared America, single-handed and with one hand tied behind its back, can hold off the whole world.

Can you imagine George W. Bush admitting that we weren't all powerful? Or, for that matter, delivering the most famous part of that speech:

In the future days, which we seek to make secure, we look forward to a world founded upon four essential human freedoms.

The first is freedom of speech and expression -- everywhere in the world.

The second is freedom of every person to worship God in his own way -- everywhere in the world.

The third is freedom from want, which, translated into world terms, means economic understandings which will secure to every nation a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants -- everywhere in the world.

The fourth is freedom from fear, which, translated into world terms, means a world-wide reduction of armaments to such a point and in such a thorough fashion that no nation will be in a position to commit an act of physical aggression against any neighbor -- anywhere in the world.

That is no vision of a distant millennium. It is a definite basis for a kind of world attainable in our own time and generation. That kind of world is the very antithesis of the so-called “new order” of tyranny which the dictators seek to create with the crash of a bomb.

To that new order we oppose the greater conception -- the moral order. A good society is able to face schemes of world domination and foreign revolutions alike without fear.

Since the beginning of our American history we have been engaged in change, in a perpetual, peaceful revolution, a revolution which goes on steadily, quietly, adjusting itself to changing conditions without the concentration camp or the quicklime in the ditch. The world order which we seek is the cooperation of free countries, working together in a friendly, civilized society.

This nation has placed its destiny in the hands and heads and hearts of its millions of free men and women, and its faith in freedom under the guidance of God. Freedom means the supremacy of human rights everywhere. Our support goes to those who struggle to gain those rights and keep them. Our strength is our unity of purpose.

To that high concept there can be no end save victory.

While George W. Bush seeks to create fear in the American people in order to strum up political support, FDR looked the Nazis -- a threat of a far greater magnitude than al Qaeda -- in the eye and promised to deliver a new vision for the world, free from fear, and that it would happen "in our own time and generation."

I hope Barack Obama can return us to the true ideals upon which this nation was founded and show the world that we reject the un-American policies of George W. Bush.

CNN: The Most Trusted Name in News

On CNN's main page this afternoon, an article by Glenn Beck declares that Florida and Michigan should be out of luck because they broke the rules.

Glenn Beck, who is of the "if you disagree with me, you're a pussy" ilk, says that Florida and Michigan need to step up to the plate and take some personal responsibility. Never mind that Florida and Michigan aren't "persons."

But, ranting about a stupid article by Glenn Beck isn't worth my time, nor is it worth your or anyone's time to read a blog post ranting about Glenn Beck. What is really got me is the "comments" section at the bottom of the article. Go ahead; open the article up in a new tab. (For you Internet Explorer 6 users, click here, here, or here, for information on tabs) Scan through those comments... Every single one of them is positive. All of them. Now, I submitted a comment to this article six hours ago and was told that it would go through a CNN moderator before being posted online. Normally, that means that they would be checking it for vulgarity etc...

I present to you here the text of my comment, and will let you, the readers of my blog, (all both of you) judge whether it should be worthy of CNN:

OK. This is ridiculous. "They" didn't follow the rules, so "they" should be punished? Problem is, we're talking about two different "theys" here. The Democratic party leaders didn't follow the rules, so millions and millions of voters should be punished!?

Democracy is not a game, Glenn. Your article reads like Florida and Michigan committed hooking penalties and now have to sit in the penalty box.

The party leaders in Florida and Michigan wagered that this would be a close race, and that their states' votes wouldn't be decisive to the outcome. Obviously, that was an idiotic move. But it was also not their move to make. There shouldn't be any way for a few idiots to disqualify an entire state from an election.

Obviously, my comment was far inferior to the likes of:

HOW can ANYbody (of sound mind) refute this line of thinking?! Well said. Period!

or

YOU'RE ON FIRE MY MAN
KEEP IT UP

or

As a Democrat from Los Angeles, I can always count on Glenn Beck for his insightful and (mostly) bipartisan commentary. In this case, I couldnt agree more with him

That last one has to be a CNN plant. That's like saying that you're a conservative Republican, and your favorite author is Gore Vidal.

Oy. I suppose I should count my blessings though. At least it wasn't about Britney Spears and Paris Hilton.

Josh Marshall Wins Polk Award

Now this is cool. The blog that you (all both of you) may have noticed I link to most often just won a Polk award for its involvement in reporting and uncovering the recent U.S. Attorney scandal.

Talking Points Memo is one of the most important web sites on the many internets. It is different from the better-known Daily Kos because it features legitimate, high quality journalism to complement the editorial nature of regular blogging. TPM was also involved in pushing back Bush's social security privatization attempt awhile back.

Marshall now has his sites set on combating the GOP slime machine. He has a post up now wondering aloud how a smear from a blatant GOP dirty trickster can wind up becoming an Associated Press article, and then a CNN front page article, and now, a CNN poll. I will be keenly following whether Marshall is able to affect the process in any way. Already, he has clearly caught the attention of the mainstream press. If he continues to harp on them for allowing stupid GOP dirty tricks to waltz onto their front pages, maybe they will catch some flak for it.

Ye Olde GOP Slime Machine

Beginning to get into gear...

Apparently, Barack Obama isn't patriotic. Also, he refuses to say the pledge of allegiance.

The former claim is especially frustrating. The Associated Press lends credence to this crap. The AP's source for Obama's alleged lack of patriotism? A guy named Roger Stone who makes Ann Coulter look calm and credible.

This is undoubtably the tip of the iceberg. oy

Obama at Reunion Arena

This post has been a long time in coming. I attended the Obama rally at Reunion Arena last month and took some pictures with my iPhone.


This line was seriously long. It poured out the back of the Reunion parking garage, and, once inside, wrapped up the ramps all the way to the roof, and then back down again. I was highly skeptical that we would be able to get in.

View of the line from the roof. The speech was only a few minutes from starting at this point. Luckily, there was nearly an hour's worth of introductions.

Heading back down again. We're on the second-highest floor here.


A look at the line , several floors below us...


To my great shock, we actually got in. Turns out, the Obama staffers thought it would be a good idea to have everybody go through one doorway.

We got in just as Obama started to speak. Unfortunately, we missed Emmitt Smith's introduction which would have been fun. Oh, well... c'est la vie.

Here Come the Rangers!!

Anyone got a problem if we field a sexagenarian closer this year?

Shenanigans in Washington State

Now here's an interesting story. The Republican Party in Washington state is having a hard time counting all of the ballots from their caucuses the other day. With only 87% of the ballots counted, and with McCain nursing a lead of less than 2% over Mike Huckabee, state GOP chair Luke Esser declared McCain the winner. Here is a brief rundown of the night's events, courtesy of Josh Marshall of TPM.

Maybe calling an election off with only 87% isn't enough to make you think there's something fishy in these degraded times of ours. Maybe this will.

This was based on my recollection. But this afternoon we went back and checked our election night notes (remember we report results in real time). And here's the progression of events.

According to our records (and I would strongly suggest other people with information check this against their data), the first report came in at roughly 9:30 PM eastern. With 16% of the vote, McCain ahead 27% to 26%.

Then at 10:15 PM, with 37% of the vote in, Huckabee moves ahead 26% to 23%.

Then there was an hour delay until the next update. That comes shortly after 11:15 PM, with 78% counted, McCain has moved ahead -- 25.4% to 23.8%.

Then there's another delay of an hour and twenty minutes. Shortly after 12:35, they get to 83% of the vote and now it's McCain 25.6% and Huckabee 23.8%.

The next update comes at 1:30 AM eastern. By this time they've counted a whopping 4% more of the vote. And with 87% reporting, it's McCain 25.5% to 23.7%.

So just to summarize here's basically how this works. We start out with McCain ahead. Huckabee jumps ahead with a 3% margin with almost 40% of the vote counted. Then everything slows waaaaay down. And we don't see anything else until about 40% more of the votes been counted and McCain is back in the lead. Things then proceed a glacial pace with Huckabee a little less than 2 percentage points back until 9% more of the vote is counted. And then they decide to declare McCain the winner. Not quite as cut and dry as the conclusion of a Scooby-Doo episode. But pretty close.

Sound fishy to you?

Anyway, Huckabee thinks things are fishy and has hired a bunch of lawyers to head up to Washington to look into the results.

But what really got me interested in this was a quote from an article Esser wrote in 1986 while he was in college. Remember, this is the guy who is in charge of counting people's votes:

Like any sport worth its salt, in politics you have adversaries, opponents, enemies. Our enemies are loudmouth leftists and shiftless deadbeats. To win the election, we have to keep as many of these people away from the polls as possible.

Now your average leftist loudmouth is a committed individual and can almost never be persuaded to ignore his constitutional rights. The deadbeats, however, are a different matter entirely. Years of interminable welfare checks and free government services have made these modern-day sloths even more lazy. They will vote on election day, if it isn’t much of a bother. But even the slightest inconvenience can keep them from the polling place.

Many of the most successful anti-deadbeat voter techniques (poll taxes, sound beatings, etc.) that conservatives have used in the past have been outlawed by busybody judges.

The only means of persuasion left available to us are Acts of God, who we know is exclusively on our side. I’m talking about seriously inclement weather. I want Biblical floods and pestilence. I will settle for rain, sweet rain. The deadbeats won’t even go out in the rain for their welfare checks (they send one of their social workers to pick it up). There’s no way they’ll vote if it’s raining.

Busybody judges, eh? Wouldn't it be better if we went back to the 19th century when we just killed black people for showing up at the polls? That's a damn effective way to stop someone from voting as it has the added bonus of preventing them from trying again in the future.

Wow... and this isn't like we're talking about Strom Thurmond here. It's not like Esser wrote this back in the Jim Crow era. He wrote this in 1986. How in the world did this guy get elected chair of the state GOP? Yikes.

I will be following this story with great interest as it continues to develop. If you want to follow it as well, Talking Points Memo is following things pretty closely.

Update: Huckabee is now demanding a recount.

Update #2: Turns out, Esser is a close political ally of state Attorney General Rob McKenna who helped get him appointed as Washington GOP chair. McKenna is the chairman of the McCain campaign in Washington.